Hospice Of Central Florida To Be Sold

The For-profit Vitas Healthcare Corp. Of Miami Hopes To Acquire The Nonprofit Agency By May Or June.

March 15, 1996|By Sandra Mathers of The Sentinel Staff

A for-profit Miami health-care corporation announced plans this week to buy Hospice of Central Florida, the state's oldest care organization for the terminally ill.

VITAS Healthcare Corp., the nation's largest hospice-care company, has signed a nonbinding letter of intent to acquire the nonprofit Central Florida hospice by late May or early June, VITAS development director Ron Fried said in Orlando.

Neither Fried nor Hospice of Central Florida President Brenda Horne would reveal the purchase price, but Horne said ''millions of dollars'' will change hands.

''Today's (health-care) environment favors large entities,'' Horne said. ''We wanted a partner that will allow us to continue to provide quality services.''

Hospice of Central Florida, based in Maitland, provides a team approach to serving the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of terminally ill patients in their own homes in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties.

Officials for both organizations said little will change at the Maitland-based hospice as a result of the buyout. Horne will become general manager in charge of the same management team, and local volunteers - the backbone of the hospice program - will continue in their current roles of providing patient care, she said.

The health-care system's move toward managed care and government efforts to cut Medicare costs by decreasing hospice reimbursements are factors in the acquisition, Horne said.

But heavy competition for hospice patients from other health-care providers in Central Florida also is responsible for the buyout, insiders said.

To survive, hospices nationwide are consolidating and forming alliances, said Mary Labyak of St. Petersburg, policy committee chairwoman for Florida Hospices Inc. The trade group represents Florida's 37 hospices. All but two are nonprofit.

Currently, Hospice of Central Florida competes with Hospice of the Comforter in Altamonte Springs. And three other companies are applying for a single certificate of need from the state to start a third hospice in the Orlando area later this year.

The Visiting Nurse Association, a nonprofit home health-care agency in Central Florida; Wuesthoff Health Systems, a hospital chain in Melbourne; and Integrated Health Services of Baltimore, which owns and manages nursing homes around the country including Central Florida, are all applying for the certificate, officials said Thursday.

Hospice of Central Florida is the first in the state to lose its nonprofit status as a result of a buyout. State law requires hospices to be nonprofit unless they were started before 1978. VITAS and Hospice of Central Florida started in 1976.

The Central Florida hospice's foundation - to be renamed HCF Foundation - will continue to operate, bolstered by the proceeds from the sale, and the nonprofit's New Hope Counseling Center continue to provide services as a new corporation, Horne said.

Hospice of Central Florida, which has an annual budget of $13 million, employs 177 workers and a 40-member worker pool, draws from more than 600 community volunteers and serves about 300 patients a day.

VITAS, the nation's largest provider of hospice services, employs 2,300 workers and serves 5,000 patients a day in 10 states, Fried said.